jackie hayes

QUOTE (rangercal @ Jul 1, 2008 -> 12:35 PM) I would be all for it if they trade some bodies ( gooden,noc) . However, if this screws up our cap space for 2010 I would rather pass. There's no way it would not limit the cap space in 2010, as far as I can tell. He opted out of a ~$17 mil option, so he's clearly looking for more than the MLE, which would be at most about $30 mil total over 5 years (iirc -- and he should be able to get much more). Basically the only way you get him is a sign-and-trade with the Clippers, but he'll certainly want a 4+ year deal at decent money. I think at best it would be a sideways move in terms of 2010 cap space, instead of clearing money by moving Hinrich, say.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jul 1, 2008 -> 08:58 AM) As Earl Weaver would say, "The key to winning baseball games is pitching, fundamentals, and three run homers." Just don't ask him about gardening.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 1, 2008 -> 07:38 AM) If food shortages, political witchhunts, and one million percent inflation haven't done that, I don't know what will. I think this election was Zimbabwe's last good chance for a while. I think they are pretty much stuck until the guy dies now. Disagree. An arms embargo could be pretty useful, I'd guess, and it would weaken a key Mugabe prop without exacerbating the food/currency problem. It probably won't happen, but it should.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 1, 2008 -> 07:23 AM) Sanctions aren't going to matter because there is no economy there left to destroy. They took care of that years ago... They would matter if they'd squeeze Mugabe and his cronies.

Brand opted out of the last year on his deal, fwiw.

QUOTE (almagest @ Jun 30, 2008 -> 05:30 PM) Link or evidence, please? The only research I've seen is that teams with a standard deviation of runs scored & runs against close to the league average for a particular year fall closest to their Pythag record. He only said it was a guess...

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jun 30, 2008 -> 01:40 PM) Start looking at standard deviation of runs scored instead of average. That will tell you how consistent they are. I'd also guess that as your runs scored deviates more and more, your run differential becomes less and less accurate at predicting wins and losses. He's not just looking at averages, he also mentioned games with fewer than 2 runs and shutouts. That's the best way to look at the data, looking at the actual distribution instead of summary statistics. Standard deviations do not mean much on their own, because the standard deviation in runs scored could be higher simply because the offense scores more -- so the Sox, a high scoring team, would look more inconsistent than a low scoring team (or the league as a whole).

Depends mostly on Richar, imo. Assuming Ramirez keeps hitting like he has and the coaches believe he can handle ss, the best situation involves a league-average hitting Richar at 2b, 2 extra draft picks, and $10 mil to play with. That would be one damn nice situation.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Jun 30, 2008 -> 10:58 AM) If you get a chance, let me know what the Red Sox record is. I'd expect the Red Sox, Tribe, and Yankees to be much more like the Sox (more reliant on the homer) while I think the Angels and Twins would be on the other side of the spectrum (as they don't hit many hr's, thus they have to be able to manufacture and play to other strengths to have such good records). Red Sox, 39-20 with, 11-14 without Oakland, 25-11 with, 19-26 without Oakland, just because I was curious (since they have been neck-and-neck with the Sox in terms of pitching, with a much weaker offense). Okay, no more requests. I'm just copy-pasting the baseball-reference batting game logs into Excel and then adding the formulas, so any teams you're curious about, that's one way to check.

I checked a couple other teams, just for perspective: Yankees: 32-22 with, 12-16 without Minny: 28-18 with, 17-19 without Cleveland: 28-18 with, 9-27 without

QUOTE (The Beast @ Jun 29, 2008 -> 07:46 PM) You do not come out of the dugout to argue balls and strikes even if you are right. Never, good call by that Home plate umpire, I would have said "eat s*** and take the night off, fat f***." I thought they were just discussing the advantages of keeping yrself hydrated? Did the soccer game not finish this afternoon?

Official results in Zimbabwe's "election" (man, they were sure able to get a vote count quickly this time!): http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080629/ap_on_re_af/zimbabwe I read something recently suggesting that Mugabe would have to give Tsvangirai enough votes to make the election look credible, and I really didn't understand why he'd even bother. Apparently he didn't see the need, either. He was "sworn" in shortly after the "results" were announced. The US is preparing sanctions, but they will likely not have much of an effect, since China and South Africa are unlikely to go along with it. And I was wrong about Thabo Mbeki. He's not merely a coward, he's scum, as well.

QUOTE (G&T @ Jun 28, 2008 -> 01:13 PM) Well, on page 35, after considering the difficulties in prosecuting a child rape case, at the end of the opinion, the Court stated: So, according to the Court, the death penalty would not have been struck down if everything were not considered together. Whether that's true or not, I don't know. And I'm not stating that the decision was right or wrong, I was merely adding a practicality to the discussion. I know you're not giving your opinion on the decision; I wasn't trying to give mine, either. Just trying to clarify. Eh...they didn't really say that it "would not have been struck down if everything were not considered together," only that no single argument would have been sufficient to strike it down. And, logically, it seems that the 'standards of decency' argument should be sufficient. It would be difficult to argue, 'This penalty does not conform to the national consensus on standards of decency, but as long as there are no practical difficulties, it's Constitutional.' That argument (standards of decency) in itself has multiple parts (and it is the bulk of the decision, as the practicality arguments take up less than two pages -- although of course that does not necessarily mean anything), and possibly no one of those parts would have been sufficient, but I just don't see how they could hold that and not strike down the penalty, whatever the other arguments are. You could be right, and I don't think the decision is perfectly clear on this, I'm just saying that I don't think the Court could have come to any other conclusion given what they held on the 'standards' argument. The rest just looks like gravy. Jmho.

QUOTE (G&T @ Jun 27, 2008 -> 07:17 AM) The problem is that in these rape cases, there are as many or more false charges by a pissed off ex-spouse or whatever than genuine charges. Meanwhile, children are very difficult to get reliable testimony out of. No matter what they say some doctor will give a reason for why the testimony was the result of mental trauma caused by sexual abuse. Also remember, DNA evidence usually won't come into play because the child won't say anything until it's too late. Just my 2 cents. It seems that that angle played only a small part in the Court's reasoning, though. Even if that weren't true, they would have struck it down (apparently).

Election day in Zimbabwe! Democracy in action! And by "democracy", I mean threatening the life and home of anyone who doesn't want to vote, informing people that their votes will be recorded and checked, blocking people from the South African embassy, and, of course, prohibiting journalists from covering anything. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080627/ap_on_re_af/zimbabwe Oh, and Thabo Mbeki is a f***ing coward.

Dan Shanoff's summary of draft day: The Nets drafted LeBron. http://www.sportingnews.com/blog/the_sport...raft_..._lebron And Bill Simmons, last night: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story...=simmons/080626

QUOTE (daa84 @ Jun 27, 2008 -> 12:16 AM) nope, ive been waiting to see that myself...pax mentioned that weems wouldnt be with the bulls though so it will certainly be weems and maybe just cash or something btw Paxson said 3 years down the line he may be ready to play here, but that Hollinger article says 5.....5 years seems like an awful long time to wait on a guy So, apparently we gave up 3 future second-round picks (including, iirc, the one we got for Weems). Most things I find say he has two years left on his contract. A couple (including the Hollinger article you mention) say he either just signed or probably will sign a new five-year deal. There's no way Paxson would deal 3 second-rounders for a guy the Bulls won't see until the 2013-2014 season (when he'll be in his late 20s, anyway), so I think it's a safe assumption that the five-year deal reports are wrong. Maybe he's in the last two years of a five-year deal, maybe there was talk of an extension -- but the Bulls wouldn't wait that long on him. "He is mostly known by his abnormal shot blocking ability." Gotta love wikipedia.

QUOTE (ChWRoCk2 @ Jun 26, 2008 -> 07:35 PM) Just pick Rose already, don't drag it out for 5 mins. We can keep asking, but they're never gonna change it. So are the Heat keeping Beasley?

QUOTE (chimpy2121 @ Jun 26, 2008 -> 06:53 PM) Starts in 27 minutes? Ugh. Soooooooooooo annoying. Half an hour of talk about everyone's goddam suit. If I wanted this, I wouldn't watch Project Runway instead of not watching the NBA draft.

Rotoworld's newest mock has a good summary of Miami's choice:

QUOTE (DBAH0 @ Jun 26, 2008 -> 03:46 PM) If that happens, the Knicks get to choose either Westbrook or Bayless. They'd be very happy bout that. Surprised the Clippers would trade up to get Gordon though. Maybe they hope the Wolves somehow take Lopez at 3 and Mayo falls to #4, I don't know. I think they could have stayed at #7 and still got Gordon FWIW. Yeah, the Gordon thing was in the article, but I find that a little strange, too.

QUOTE (Palehosefan @ Jun 26, 2008 -> 03:46 PM) I think a lot of it has to do with Jay-Z trying to make room to get Lebron in 2010. I can't believe I just typed that. Exactly. The Nets are looking at everything else as just details. Which is about the same as how the Cavs look at his supporting cast, so he should feel right at home there.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Jun 26, 2008 -> 03:05 PM) Clippers acquired the 4th pick and will be taking bayless, imo. However, getting the 4th pick does give Miami a guarantee that if they move down they'd get a PG to put next to Wade. Richard Jefferson traded to the Bucks for Yi & Simmons The Clipper trade is conditional. If Mayo is there, the deal is off. Chad Ford claiming they will probably take Gordon at 4.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Jun 26, 2008 -> 12:48 PM) Technically they can still work out a trade though, it just can't be official as of today. QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Jun 26, 2008 -> 12:51 PM) But, you can agree in principal and announce it "unofficially" so it basically locks both side into the deal. I guess....you still need to know the cap number, and the other team will want to know what kind of contract they're trading for. You might be able to agree to a trade on the condition that such-and-such an extension is agreed to, or something like that, but since the Bulls reportedly haven't talked contract with either, yet, it's probably not the type of trade you'd announce -- still too much to be worked out.

By draft time, I'm fully expecting to see Pat Riley walking around the room just offering the pick to anybody with 'a good, loving home.'